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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Launch

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand." — Milton Friedman

As President Obama took office in 2009, I sold electronic health records, which track a patient’s medical history by computer instead of by hand. For a couple of decades, companies like mine had helped medical providers save money while they improved their patients’ quality of care. Once we installed and launched EHR software at a doctor’s office or hospital, it was a win for everyone.

Many in the EHR industry were thrilled when Congress passed Obama’s “stimulus” package since it included nearly $20 billion of incentives to help doctors and hospitals purchase software. D.C. is opening the money spigot, manufacturers thought. Let the good times roll!

As any free-market advocate knows, there’s no such thing as a free lunch — or a free software launch. The feds provided yet another object lesson in the perils of government intervention.

Before the industry could start raking in that “free money,” they only needed one clarification. To receive one of Congress’ incentive payments, providers had to show that they are “meaningfully using” their EHRs. Since Congress added that two-word phrase to the 1000-page stimulus legislation, they must have a quick definition right? They should get back to us by the end of the day, and we can get to selling! Okay, maybe by the end of the week? Err… end of the month?

Fifteen months later, a sub-suboffice in the Department of Health and Human Services dropped a stack of dead trees on the industry. The simple two-word phrase had ballooned into a 650-page “interim final rule” which defined “meaningful use” through a series of new regulations, certifications, quality checks and best practices that your local family doctor had to follow if he wanted his slice of government cheese.

Since that interim rule contained several contradictory demands, meaningless requirements and flat-out errors, the HHS later released a “final rule” weighing in at 850 pages. But that was only “Stage 1” of meaningful use; Stages 2 and 3 were promised in the years ahead.

Oh, and in the meantime, Congress passed Obamacare, which added 2,700 pages of new rules never mentioned by HHS's CMS/ONC 850-page EHR Meaningful Use Final Rule (Stage 1). Have a headache yet? Don’t worry; I had one for a year and a half straight. Overnight, my job changed from helping customers to dissecting turgid bureaucratese and offering my own Talmudic interpretations.

As is so often the case, what was intended to “help” instead created a regulatory nightmare. I assume that most of you didn’t know much about the EHR industry nor did you care. But expand this one tiny example into the entirety of government incentives, special tax breaks and outright crony capitalism.

For every highly publicized Cash for Clunkers, Solyndra, or pork-filled Sandy relief bill, there are hundreds of untold stories of wasted time, money and effort by workers in nearly every field. You probably have stories of your own that blow mine away.

“Free money” leads to new rules. When the rules don’t work, even more rules are created with new federal agencies to interpret, measure and enforce them. Then the next president decides the whole system is an over-complicated mess, so he orders more “improvement.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

Perhaps this vicious circle of idiocy could be indulged in good economic times, but $16 trillion in debt later, we no longer have the luxury. It’s past time for every American in every industry to start brown-bagging it. History proves that it will be a lot cheaper than the “free” lunch Washington is offering.

Bureaucracy too large? I find the creation of "Homeland Security" a waste of $46.9M/2012. We supposedly (?) have the best military, intelligence community in the world and yet Bush43 felt it necessary to begin and entire new cabinet position and bloated government agency? Talk about idiocy!

And how many BILLIONS have we spent, and continue to spend, with the use of court time for all of the ridiculous arguments created by the misunderstanding of two words in The Constitution; "well-regulated militia?" More money wasted and as each case goes to court? More and more the gun lobby is "refining" (read constricting) personal freedoms with their challenges as the rulings make definitions that weren't there to begin with, they define it all now.

We have Senators wasting government money by filibustering rather than openly arguing and refining their points to bring common ground and effective governance to this country. NO, we have to have those who would rather build page after page of committee work on specious accusations than actually do the work they were elected to do. Ridiculous!

Time to stop the unilateral Congress of Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor and have them do their jobs instead of wasting tax dollars with their franking privileges and flights home to their districts where they report on what? That their grandstanding has all but stopped effective governance in the USA. How sad and pathetic. The world is watching and the downgrade in the credit rating is evidence of its disapproval.

(Via Ben Domenech's The Transom.)The Physician's Foundation conducted an extensive survey of those most essential to the delivery of health care in America and found that all is definitely not well in Doctor Land. (Link to the .pdf can be found here.)Here are a couple of quick snapshots from the results.

Last week, I wrote about The New Republic claiming that Obamacare was already a success because the number of uninsured people in the United States had slightly dropped. Of course, the purported goal of the Affordable Care Act is to make sure that everyone has insurance. That was the intent behind the mandate that's now a tax or penalty or whatever. Is it going to work?Probably not.

Democracy and Power 108: ObfuscationPoliticians know their constituents are generally inattentive to their political actions. Thus, a politician’s speech is seldom precise or logically reasoned. Seeking a favorable image, politicians talk in generalities, exaggerations and obfuscation.

The Obama Administration is trying to raise taxes without Congressional approval, and they really don't care what you think about it. Every legislator, whether state or federal, must oppose the usurpation of legislative prerogative. Citizens should oppose the move, which will raise their taxes without even a vote in Congress.At National Review Online, Michael Cannon and Jonathan Adler write:

Last night during an interview for 60 Minutes, President Obama made the false declaration that "I haven't raised taxes." But recent news coming out of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) begs to differ, and a majority of proof that the President's statement is patently false comes from his signature legislation - Obamacare.During his interview, Obama blamed rhetoric and lies for the notion that he has raised taxes.

Let’s take a closer look at how interstate insurance sales would impact another important element of consumer-driven health care reform: true insurance. If you’ve forgotten, true insurance is individual insurance. Most people receive their health insurance as the result of a group insurance plan provided by their employer.

Dean Clancy is right that health reform debate is about only two basic alternatives -- the HMO or the HSA. Reform either comes with top down, authoritarian price controls and foolish attempts to control the market with bureaucratic systems like Health Maintenance Organizations, or with a thin layer of structure to allow free people to make their own decisions, as happens with Health Savings Accounts.

Perhaps the most prominent conservative health care reform idea is to allow Americans to buy health insurance across state lines. It’s undoubtedly the GOP’s favorite talking point when it comes to replacing ObamaCare. Not only is it well-known, it’s also pretty popular. The benefits to such a reform are obvious, as any economist will tell you that more competition in a market typically leads to lower prices and higher product quality. It makes intuitive sense to most Americans, and there aren’t any exceedingly obvious reasons to object to the idea.

FreedomWorks is proud to report that the 2012 GOP Platform, as approved at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, incorporates almost all key elements of the FreedomWorks “Freedom Platform”. Most notably, the 2012 GOP Platform calls for both an Audit of the Federal Reserve and the full repeal of Obamacare, two of the cornerstones of the Freedom Platform. Striking similarities between the two platforms are an encouraging reminder of the ground that the freedom movement is gaining within the establishment Republican Party.